One Day Cricket - New Rules

ICC has made some changes in rules when it comes to one day cricket in the recent ICC meeting at Barbados. It was being observed that the rules of cricket are too biased towards the batsmen and what people really want is a close contest between the bat and ball. 

Cricket has changed so much over the years. With bats improving these days even miss hits tend to clear boundaries. o ICC has announced that it will look into the size and make of the bats.

The earlier rules that allowed only 4 fielders outside the 30 yard circle made life difficult for the bowlers. Even good balls were going for boundaries, specially during the last 10 overs. So ICC has now taken a decision to allow 5 fielders  outside the 30 yard circle during the last 10 overs.

Again the batting powerplay that allowed only 3 fielders outside the 30 yard circle, this made life hell for the bowlers, even miss hits and edges went for boundaries. So batting powerplay has been scrapped . Now the batting side will only have the advantage of the mandatory powerplay. The mandatory powerplay happens when both the balls are new and provides lot of assistance to the bowlers. 

One more major decision that the ICC took was to have a free hit after every no-ball. Earlier only front foot no balls were awarded free hits, now all kinds of no balls that include full toss over waist height, back foot no ball or a bowler disturbing the bails on the non striking end at the time of bowling would be penalised with a free hit. Since the free hits came into existence the number of no-balls bowled by the bowlers have come down sharply. These days you hardly see any front foot no balls being bowled in T20s or one dayers. 

The major changes in rules for one day cricket are:

1. The requirement of posting two close in fielders within 15 yards of the batsmen during mandatory powerplay has been scrapped.
2. No batting powerplay from now on.
3. All noballs would result the next ball being awarded as a free hit to the batting side.
4. 5 fielders allowed outside the 30 yard circle from overs 41 to 50.

The change in rules will give more teeth to the bowlers and we will see more competitive cricket, although the number of runs that are being scored may come down. 

It would be interesting to see the fans feedback on the matches played under this rules.